Center on Media and Child Health

What I Learned at the CCFC Summit

On Friday, I presented at the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood's Annual Summit.  My talk about research on media and sex was well-attended and lead to some great discussion among participants. 

I wanted to post about a few resources I became aware of through the Summit and pass them on to CMCH blog readers, since you may also be interested:

• Sarah Grimes, a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, presented her work on interactive websites and Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) for kids.  Turns out she has a blog about digital games and other technologies for children: Gamine Expedition
• In the main gathering area, there was an exhibit titled "Buy Me Something" by the talented photographer Nat Ward, who aims for these images to "challenge people to consider how toys and the mechanisms that facilitate their sale inform and reproduce a distinct set of culturally-defined values."  Click the arrow on the bottom right to see more images:  Buy Me Something
• The Media Education Foundation has a new video coming out in Fall 2008 about the commercialization of childhood.  CMCH Director Dr. Michael Rich makes an appearance around minute 3:37 in the trailer they previewed at the Summit: Consuming Kids

 

Let's Talk About Sex(ual content)

CMCH Librarian Brandy King will be presenting at the 6th Annual Summit of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.  The Summit will take place April 3rd-5th at Wheelock College, and will focus on the theme "Consuming Kids: The Sexualization of Children and Other Commercial Calamities." 

Ms. King will present research about sex and media followed by a live website tour of CMCH resources designed to help researchers pursue study on this topic.

See CMCH resources on sex and media

Hip-Hop, Sex, and Gender Dynamics

A recent New York Times article explored a 3 year study of the hip-hop club scene in NY city.  Munoz-Laboy et al observed dancing and behavior at these clubs and ran interviews with young men and women.  They were surprised to find that even with the sexual and often misogynistic overtones of the music, young women made sure that they were the ones in charge of their bodies on the dance floor.

Learning Scripts for Romance

After a few weeks off, the CMCH blog is back!  There is much new research to cover over the next few days.  One new study by Rivadeneyra and Lebo examined 215 high schoolers to learn whether television affected their dating behavior.  They found that:

• Teens who watched romantic TV shows were more likely to have traditional gender views when it came to dating.
• Teens who watched soap operas were more likely to start dating earlier and to have more dating partners.

These results suggest that many teens learn dating behavior from what they see on TV.

Online Bullying and Sexual Harassment Studies

There are two new studies on the Internet in this month's Journal of Adolescent Health:

Prevalence and Frequency of Internet Harassment Instigation: Implications for Adolescent Health. by Ybarra, M. L., & Mitchell, K. J.
Using data from a survey of 1500 teens, researchers found that 6% reported being frequent perpetrators of online harassment, 6% reported being occasional perpetrators, and 17% reported being limited perpetrators in the past year.  They conclude that their findings "reinforce previous research that youth who harass others online are likely facing concurrent behavioral and psychosocial challenges."

Online Requests for Sexual Pictures from Youth: Risk Factors and Incident Characteristics.
by Mitchell, K. J., Finkelhor, D., & Wolak, J.
Using data from a survey of 1500 teens, researchers found that among teens who use the Internet, 4% had been asked to send a sexual picture of themselves during the past year.  Female Black youth and boys and girls being abused are particularly vulnerable.

2 Studies: Couch Potatoes, Unwanted Porn

Two studies in this month's Pediatrics have made national headlines today:

• Reuters reported that getting kids to shut off the TV doesn't necessarily mean they will be more physically active.  CMCH researcher Dr. Alison Field was part of the research team on a four-year study of 10,000 early adolescents.  Although over time, the teens watched less television, that time was not spent engaging in physical activity.  This tells us that simply getting kids to shut off the TV doesn't necessarily mean they'll spend less time being sedentary. 


• The Associated Press reported that kids and teens are increasingly finding unwanted pornography while they use the Internet.  A study of 1500 teens showed that 42% had been exposed to Internet pornography, and 66% of those teens reported "only unwanted exposure." 

TV and Teen Sex, 4 Other New Studies

Tolman et al surveyed over 700 teens to learn more about their TV viewing habits in relation to their sexual behavior.  They found that the way teens felt about their own sexuality depended not on how much sexual content they saw, but on the types of situations they saw within that content. 

For example, when girls saw women as sex objects and men avoiding commitment, they tended to feel like they had less power over their own sexuality.  The researchers found that overall, the types of messages the teens saw, as well as the gender of the teens, influenced the outcomes of viewing sexual content.  See more studies on media influences on sexual behavior from the CMCH Database of Research.

Other new research on media includes:

• Vereecken & Maes - Television Viewing and Food Consumption in Flemish Adolescents in Belgium
• McGwin et al - Prevalence of Transportation Safety Measures Portrayed in Primetime US Television Programs and Commercials
• Smith et al - Hepatitis C in Australia: Impact of a Mass Media Campaign
• Ryan et al - The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach